Stretch wrap film is commonly used to wrap a load on a pallet. The film holds goods on a pallet so that the pallet can be stored, shipped and maneuvered. Several physical properties are required for good stretch wrap film. The film should have good stretch, puncture resistance and load containment. The film should also resist tear propagation. The film must have clarity or good optics so that the contents of the pallet can be viewed through the film.
Stretch wrap film may have a non-cling surface and a cling surface opposite the noncling surface. The non-cling surface generally does not cling to itself and prevents adjoining pallets from sticking to one another. The cling surface enables the film to stick to itself. The cling surface should have sufficient cling so that the film sticks to itself when wrapped around a pallet and does not unravel. However, as cling of the film increases, so does the noise the film creates when it is unwound from the roll during the wrapping process. The noise levels created by unwinding some films with polypropylene non-cling layers are too high to be tolerated by individuals working around the pallets without ear protection, due to the need for an aggressive cling agent to stick to the polypropylene. Therefore, a film is needed with sufficient cling that also yields a tolerable noise level.
There is a constant need to decrease the cost of film for wrapping and shipping pallets. Accordingly, what is needed is a film that has comparable or superior load containment, stretch, puncture resistance, and tear resistance to other stretch wrap films but may be used at a lower gauge than commonly used stretch wrap films. The cost of film to wrap the pallet is thereby decreased.